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asoiafreadthru · 8 hours

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A Game of Thrones, Eddard IV

“I will speak with His Grace,” Ned said. “This tourney is an extravagance the realm cannot afford.”

“Speak to him as you will,” Lord Renly said, “we had still best make our plans.”

“Another day,” Ned said. Perhaps too sharply, from the looks they gave him.

He would have to remember that he was no longer at Winterfell, where only the king stood higher; here, he was but first among equals.

“Forgive me, my lords,” he said in a softer tone. “I am tired.

“Let us call a halt for today and resume when we are fresher.” He did not ask for their consent, but stood abruptly, nodded at them all, and made for the door.

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asoiafreadthru · 23 hours

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A Game of Thrones, Eddard IV

Ned was aghast. “Aerys Targaryen left a treasury flowing with gold. How could you let this happen?”

Littlefinger gave a shrug. “The master of coin finds the money. The king and the Hand spend it.”

“I will not believe that Jon Arryn allowed Robert to beggar the realm,” Ned said hotly.

Grand Maester Pycelle shook his great bald head, his chains clinking softly. “Lord Arryn was a prudent man, but I fear that His Grace does not always listen to wise counsel.”

“My royal brother loves tournaments and feasts,” Renly Baratheon said, “and he loathes what he calls ‘counting coppers.’”

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asoiafreadthru · 1 day

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A Game of Thrones, Eddard IV

Grand Maester Pycelle looked to Littlefinger and asked, “Will the treasury bear the expense?”

“What treasury is that?” Littlefinger replied with a twist of his mouth.

“Spare me the foolishness, Maester. You know as well as I that the treasury has been empty for years.

“I shall have to borrow the money. No doubt the Lannisters will be accommodating. We owe Lord Tywin some three million dragons at present, what matter another hundred thousand?”

Ned was stunned. “Are you claiming that the Crown is three million gold pieces in debt?”

“The Crown is more than six million gold pieces in debt, Lord Stark.

“The Lannisters are the biggest part of it, but we have also borrowed from Lord Tyrell, the Iron Bank of Braavos, and several Tyroshi trading cartels. Of late I’ve had to turn to the Faith. The High Septon haggles worse than a Dornish fishmonger.”

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asoiafreadthru · 2 days

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A Game of Thrones, Eddard IV

“How much?” asked Littlefinger, mildly.

Ned read the answer off the letter. “Forty thousand golden dragons to the champion. Twenty thousand to the man who comes second, another twenty to the winner of the melee, and ten thousand to the victor of the archery competition.”

“Ninety thousand gold pieces,” Littlefinger sighed.

“And we must not neglect the other costs. Robert will want a prodigious feast. That means cooks, carpenters, serving girls, singers, jugglers, fools…”

“Fools we have in plenty,” Lord Renly said.

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asoiafreadthru · 2 days

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A Game of Thrones, Eddard IV

Renly drew a tightly rolled paper from his sleeve and laid it on the table. “This morning he commanded me to ride ahead with all haste and ask Grand Maester Pycelle to convene this council at once. He has an urgent task for us.”

Littlefinger smiled and handed the paper to Ned. It bore the royal seal. Ned broke the wax with his thumb and flattened the letter to consider the king’s urgent command, reading the words with mounting disbelief.

Was there no end to Robert’s folly? And to do this in his name, that was salt in the wound.

“Gods be good,” he swore.

“What Lord Eddard means to say,” Lord Renly announced, “is that His Grace instructs us to stage a great tournament in honor of his appointment as the Hand of the King.”

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asoiafreadthru · 3 days

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A Game of Thrones, Eddard IV

“Perhaps we had best wait for Ser Barristan and the king to join us,” Ned suggested.

Renly Baratheon laughed aloud. “If we wait for my brother to grace us with his royal presence, it could be a long sit.”

“Our good King Robert has many cares,” Varys said. “He entrusts some small matters to us, to lighten his load.”

“What Lord Varys means is that all this business of coin and crops and justice bores my royal brother to tears,” Lord Renly said, “so it falls to us to govern the realm.

“He does send us a command from time to time.”

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asoiafreadthru · 3 days

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A Game of Thrones, Eddard IV

“We are but five,” he pointed out.

“Lord Stannis took himself to Dragonstone not long after the king went north,” Varys said.

“And our gallant Ser Barristan no doubt rides beside the king as he makes his way through the city, as befits the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard.”

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asoiafreadthru · 4 days

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A Game of Thrones, Eddard IV

The king’s seat sat empty at the head of the table, the crowned stag of Baratheon embroidered in gold thread on its pillows. Ned took the chair beside it, as the right hand of his king.

“My lords,” he said formally, “I am sorry to have kept you waiting.”

“You are the King’s Hand,” Varys said. “We serve at your pleasure, Lord Stark.”

As the others took their accustomed seats, it struck Eddard Stark forcefully that he did not belong here, in this room, with these men.

He remembered what Robert had told him in the crypts below Winterfell. I am surrounded by flatterers and fools, the king had insisted.

Ned look down the council table and wondered which were the flatterers and which the fools. He thought he knew already.

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asoiafreadthru · 4 days

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A Game of Thrones, Eddard IV

Ned moved to the council table and said, “Maester Pycelle, I trust you are well.”

The Grand Maester smiled gently from his tall chair at the foot of the table.

“Well enough for a man of my years, my lord,” he replied, “yet I do tire easily, I fear.” Wispy strands of white hair fringed the broad bald dome of his forehead above a kindly face.

His maester’s collar was no simple metal choker such as Luwin wore, but two dozen heavy chains wound together into a ponderous metal necklace that covered him from throat to breast. The links were forged of every metal known to man: black iron and red gold, bright copper and dull lead, steel and tin and pale silver, brass and bronze and platinum. Garnets and amethysts and black pearls adorned the metalwork, and here and there an emerald or ruby.

“Perhaps we might begin soon,” the Grand Maester said, hands knitting together atop his broad stomach. “I fear I shall fall asleep if we wait much longer.”

“As you will.”

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asoiafreadthru · 5 days

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A Game of Thrones, Eddard IV

“I understand you knew my brother Brandon as well.”

Renly Baratheon laughed. Varys shuffled over to listen.

“Rather too well,” Littlefinger said. “I still carry a token of his esteem. Did Brandon speak of me too?”

“Often, and with some heat,” Ned said, hoping that would end it.

He had no patience with this game they played, this dueling with words.

“I should have thought that heat ill suits you Starks,” Littlefinger said. “Here in the south, they say you are all made of ice, and melt when you ride below the Neck.”

“I do not plan on melting soon, Lord Baelish. You may count on it.”

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asoiafreadthru · 5 days

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A Game of Thrones, Eddard IV

Littlefinger eyed Ned with a smile on his lips that bordered on insolence.

“I have hoped to meet you for some years, Lord Stark. No doubt Lady Catelyn has mentioned me to you.”

“She has,” Ned replied with a chill in his voice. The sly arrogance of the comment rankled him.

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asoiafreadthru · 6 days

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A Game of Thrones, Eddard IV

“I see you have arrived safely, Lord Stark,” Renly said.

“And you as well,” Ned replied.

“You must forgive me, but sometimes you look the very image of your brother Robert.”

“A poor copy,” Renly said with a shrug.

“Though much better dressed,” Littlefinger quipped. “Lord Renly spends more on clothing than half the ladies of the court.”

It was true enough. Lord Renly was in dark green velvet, with a dozen golden stags embroidered on his doublet. A cloth-of-gold half cape was draped casually across one shoulder, fastened with an emerald brooch.

“There are worse crimes,” Renly said with a laugh. “The way you dress, for one.”

Littlefinger ignored the jibe.

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asoiafreadthru · 6 days

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A Game of Thrones, Eddard IV

Lord Renly stood by the screen, talking quietly with a short man who could only be Littlefinger.

Renly had been a boy of eight when Robert won the throne, but he had grown into a man so like his brother that Ned found it disconcerting.

Whenever he saw him, it was as if the years had slipped away and Robert stood before him, fresh from his victory on the Trident.

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asoiafreadthru · 7 days

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A Game of Thrones, Eddard IV

The councillor Ned like least, the eunuch Varys, accosted him the moment he entered.

“Lord Stark, I was grievous sad to hear about your troubles on the kingsroad. We have all been visiting the sept to light candles for Prince Joffrey. I pray for his recovery.”

His hand left powder stains on Ned’s sleeve, and he smelled as foul and sweet as flowers on a grave.

“Your gods have heard you,” Ned replied, cool yet polite. “The prince grows stronger every day.”

He disentangled himself from the eunuch’s grip and crossed the room.

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asoiafreadthru · 7 days

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A Game of Thrones, Eddard IV

He found four members of the small council waiting for him.

The chamber was richly furnished.

Myrish carpets covered the floor instead of rushes, and in one corner a hundred fabulous beasts cavorted in bright paints on a carved screen from the Summer Isles.

The walls were hung with tapestries from Norvos and Qohor and Lys, and a pair of Valyrian sphinxes flanked the door, eyes of polished garnet smoldering in black marble faces.

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asoiafreadthru · 8 days

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A Game of Thrones, Eddard IV

Ned turned back to the royal steward. “Pray give me a few moments to change into something more presentable.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“My wagons are still straggling through the city. I shall need appropriate garments.”

“It will be my great pleasure,” the steward said.

And so Ned had come striding into the council chambers, bone-tired and dressed in borrowed clothing.

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asoiafreadthru · 8 days

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A Game of Thrones, Eddard IV

“We have given you Lord Arryn’s former chambers in the Tower of the Hand, if it please you. I shall have your things taken there.”

“My thanks,” Ned said as he ripped off his riding gloves and tucked them into his belt.

The rest of his household was coming through the gate behind him.

Ned saw Vayon Poole, his own steward, and called out. “It seems the council has urgent need of me.

“See that my daughters find their bedchambers, and tell Jory to keep them there. Arya is not to go exploring.”

Poole bowed.

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